Eicha at the Carlebach Shull

byaanononAugust 7, 2006

So there I was sweating it out on the floor of the Carlebach Shull. It was 100 degrees outside and I was already thirsty only 45 minutes into the fast. I cant believe its 100 degrees at night I thought as I marveled at how lucky we were to get prime floor seats with a back. Unlike the people sitting between the benches in the front of shull we had opted for the bleachers based on easy bathroom and door access. It was a great idea and a poor one at the same time. They hadn’t even begun the countdown to Eicha and the floor began to get crowded, further more we were sitting in the back which meant no mechitza(you know the section where people socialize and try and find the lone ashkinaz siddur) yeh this wasn’t good because there were some fine untznius women sitting cross legged from me. You know I feel the yetzer harah doesn’t even have to try on the most serious days. He just lets it flow, he doesn’t even have to make you justify your actions. Usually on Shabbos you kind of have to look over the mechitza to check out the ladies or daven in back of shull etc.., but here it was eye candy right in front of me. There was no effort, on top of this these beautiful ladies were dressed untznius even worse for the person trying to concentrate on the fast and the task ahead.

The floor was quite crowded now as the countdown began to the reading Eicha. The speech had ended and they were ready and then all of the sudden with no warning it did. A hush followed by a whispering of “we cant hear back here” began. I could hear I thought if you damned hippies would shut up. I was fanning myself with a Kabbalah pamphlet. Its funny I was just reading about how there is Kabbalah energy water now. Kind of like expensive vitamin water, I must laugh at those who actually buy anything but tap water.

It seems like the most serious situations like Tisha Ba’av and Yom Kippur bring out the most immature side of me. A man was standing right above me and he had a small stool between his legs causing my buddy to crack up which sent me and then my neighbor into a cant help it laughing spree, people were telling us to “nu shhhhhhh” but we couldn’t and anything would set us off, kind of like potheads who laugh at anything. All of the sudden in our madness and insane boredom we noticed everything. A girl in front of us was wearing a white see through skirt, then we noticed peoples feet since everyone wore sandals. One women had feet like a lobster and one had a bunch of tattoos on her ankle. Yes Carlebach is full of weirdo’s which makes it way more entertaining.

After shull I started ranting to my old man on the goodness of Yeshivish shulls, no hocking around and just straight up megillah. I would not have been distracted by all the ladies wandering about and would not have had to sit through a bunch of hippy speeches. Just fire and brimstone shmoozes, nothing like some good yom hadin mussar to rock the boat.